So as promised on Facebook here’s my little addition to our last couple of days in Denali.

This here is the helicopter that we didn’t get in. Weather too crappy but we both agreed we’d rather not spend that kind of money on anything less than perfect conditions.

This little guy, an Arctic Ground Squirrel was just snacking away on something at Eilson Point the final point of our Green Shuttle Bus ride.

Waterfall by Denali, photo by Nikon 🙂

There really are some pretty flowers round this park.

I was glad I wasn’t the bus driver taking the shuttles along these pretty winding, numerous switchbacks, unpaved roads.

Finally snuck a few lake reflection shots in after taking a drive past the Creekside Cabins.

So today we checked out Exit Glacier in Seward which is a couple or so hours south of Anchorage.

This was the start of our Exit Glacier Edge trail (2.2 miles round trip), so pretty I had to stop and snap a shot of our trail. I decided not to take my Nikon camera – with the view that I wouldn’t want to lug it on the Harding Ice Field trail later on.

This image shows the Glacier water flow off. All that melting ice has gotta go somewhere!

EXIT GLACIER! In 1998 you could walk up close enough to touch the ice. Not so much these days.

You can hear the water trickle through the crevices. It’s amazing to think how long this ice mass has been there.

Such a VIVID blue. The colour was surreal.

After we did the Exit Glacier Pass I decided to do the more strenuous Harding Ice Field Hike. I must admit I did read the What To Do When Bear Encounters Happen section fairly carefully before embarking 🙂

If you enlarge this photo or even if you look at this one closely you will see a small red circle I’ve put in the frame – this was the destination of our first hike out to the Exit Glacier edge. The red circle was where I left Tim to hike back to the RV as I continued on up to do part of the Harding Ice Field trail. It’s a 22km hike all the way so I just did half since we started a little late in the day.

There were several spots along the hike on the way up where I braved the prolific and persistent mosquitoes to stop long enough to take a shot of the scenery.

This one is taken by my phone camera – hence the very crappy resolution!

Same place as the one above – just from the other side AND with the little Canon Powershot.

This is the shirt I bought in Denali – a total of four hikers commented on it as I hiked up. It elicited a few laughs. I had to laugh myself – this must be a fairly serious hiking trail as the number of “professional” looking hikers I saw was quite high. There’s me in my Levi jeans, tshirt, Asics sneakers, a single 600ml bottle of water and everyone else in right proper hiking boots, not a pair of jeans in sight, trail stick thingys, fully covered clothing and back packs very full of no doubt important hiking survival gear.

I saw a couple of these little creatures on the way up and down the trail…wasn’t quick enough to snap one though apart from this exiting bottom right frame picture – I shall dub him Exit Glacier Mouse!

The Harding Ice Field – is in the top left of the screen.

Once I reached the Top of the Cliffs I took a pic of the whole Exit Glacier – but it wouldn’t fit! So this is Exit Glacier – Top

This is Exit Glacier Bottom 🙂

You could really see the turquoise blue ice of the glacier up here.

This was a pretty special experience on the way down – as I was trekking back down the trail I rounded a bend and just saw a body and tail disappear into the foliage. I had no idea what it was and briefly wondered if there were any small furry lynx like wild cats up here. So I walked on and could hear rustling in the leaves. So I stopped and turned to look back and within a few seconds this guy came bustling out onto the big rock. We both froze, staring at each other. I was just willing him to stay still enough for me to snap a pic and I was thrilled to get this shot. He apparently is not a Beaver like I thought but a Hoary Marmot or as the locals like to say a Whistle Pig! Largest ground squirrel in the world!

Before I could double snap and make sure my pic was good he was on his way.

And the last image I saw of him was this one, a furry whistler tail disappearing down the mountain foliage. Was totally moved by this whole encounter.

There were several very pretty waterfalls on this trail, it was at this point I did wish I’d lugged my Nikon with me but in the end the little Powershot did an alright job.

Tomorrow we drive into Seward and go on a cruise out the inlet and onto the Kenai Fjords Peninsula. Hoping we’ll get lots of sea wildlife so the Nikon will be ready to go!